314 MURICID.E. 



Habitat : Rocky and stony ground at low-water 

 mark; and in the laminarian zone, on the coasts of 

 Cornwall, Dorset, Devon, and the Channel Isles ; com- 

 mon, but local. The following recorded notices are by 

 no means reliable or prove that L. brnnnea is indigenous 

 to these places : — Langland Bay, near Swansea (Dill- 

 wyn); St. Cyrus, Kincardineshire (Brown); Tynemoutli 

 and Cullercoats (Alder) . With regard to the last two 

 localities Mr. Alder tells us that this species has never 

 been found there alive, and that " the sand of the coast 

 is rather vitiated with ballast from the ships." I found 

 the variety at Guernsey. L. brunnea is fossil at Pezzo 

 in Calabria (Philippi); ? Ireland (J. Smith). It in- 

 habits the Atlantic shores of France, Spain, Portugal, 

 and Madeira, the Mediterranean, and Adriatic ; depths, 

 shore -35 f. 



This has a different habit from most other whelks, 

 viz. swimming with its foot upwards. It does not seem 

 to require the use of the top whorls, the spire being 

 sometimes truncated in living and vigorous specimens. 

 Donovan, simultaneously with Montagu, described 

 the present shell as Buccinum brunneum; this specific 

 name is not Ciceronian, but appropriate, and better than 

 minima, which gives a wrong standard of comparison. 

 However, the latter name is sanctioned by Philippi 

 having also used it, without being aware of. Montagu's 

 publication ; he afterwards noticed the curious coinci- 

 dence. The Buccinum minimum of Turton, in his trans- 

 lation of the c Systema Naturse/ is Nassa incrassata. 

 It is the L. mamillata of Risso (and apparently also his 

 Nescea mamillata), Murex Massence of Delle Chiaje, 

 according to Philippi Fusus turritellatus of Deshayes, 

 Buccinum rubrum of Potiez and Michaud, and Fusus 

 subnigris of Brown. 



